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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Pay up RM210 or no MyKad

A grandmother waited patiently for 39 years for her MyKad but when she finally went to collect her card she was told she had to pay for it.

PERMATANG PAUH: A 51-year- old grandmother had waited patiently for 39 years for her identity card.Earlier, this week she thought her long wait was over, when she received a call from the Penang office of National Registration Department (NRD) to come and collect her MyKad.

But when M Menachi went to collect her MyKad on Wednesday , she was in for a rude a shock. She was told she had to pay RM210 ro collect her card.

“The person at the counter told me that I can’t collect my MyKad without paying,” said Menachi.

The poor kitchen helper did not have money and had to go home without her MyKad.

Menachi informed the human rights NGO, Hindraf Makkal Sakti advisor N Ganesan who called up NRD office to inquire about the payment.

He was told by a women officer, known as Junaidah, that Menachi had not been required to pay RM210.

Instead, the officer claimed that Menachi was merely told to bring a support letter from her village head when collecting the MyKad.

“The counter officer asked for money, not penghulu’s letter.It was a lie,” insisted Menachi, a Hindu widow to a Muslim husband, Jamal, who passed away in 2009.

This is not the first time that Menachi had a run in with the authorities.

“It’s a curse to be stateless poor Indians in this country,” she told FMT.

The late Jamal and Menachi have three sons and two daughters, now aged 20 to 30.

Her three boys, Kamal, Aziz and Jasmin, did not face any difficulty obtaining birth certificates and identity cards because they were carrying Muslim names.

However, her two Hindu daughters, Santi and Mala, were not issued citizenship documents.

According to Menachi, NRD officers have always insisted that she and her daughters convert to Islam to enable them to btain the documents without anymore constraints.

“NRD denied our legitimate rights simply because we refused to convert to Islam,” she said.

Because of the conversion issue, Santi, 30, could not even legally register her marriage with construction worker, V Shivamoorthy, 34 in Aug 2004.